In recent years a demand for shorter processing times has arisen in connection with photographic processing of color photographic materials in view of decreasing finishing delivery times and down-sizing of laboratory operation. Increasing temperatures and increasing replenishment rates are general methods of reducing the time required for each processing operation, but a number of other methods, such as enforced agitation and the addition of various accelerators, for example, have also been suggested.
For example, international patent WO87-04534 discloses a color photographic material which contains emulsions having a high silver chloride content (instead of the silver bromide based or silver iodide emulsions which were widely used in the past) processed with a view to increasing the rate of color development and/or reducing the replenishment rate.
By using high silver chloride emulsions and such development processing baths it has been possible to shorten the development time from 3 minutes 30 seconds for a conventional silver bromide emulsion based material (for example, color process CP-20, produced by Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd.) to 45 seconds (for example, color process CP-40FAS, produced by Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd. with an overall processing time of 4 minutes). But even this is not satisfactory compared to the overall processing times of other color systems (for example with the electrostatic copying systems, thermal transfer systems, and ink-jet systems).
Consequently, development of a method of processing silver halide color photographic materials which enables ultra-rapid processing using a color development process that requires no more than 20 seconds using a silver halide color development system and produces high quality color prints inexpensively and with a considerably shortened overall processing time was desirable.
A method in which the color development processing time is reduced to not more than 25 seconds, and in which, the overall processing time, including the color development processing time, the bleach-fix processing time, and the water washing time is reduced to not more than 2 minutes by processing high silver chloride emulsions in color developers which are essentially benzyl alcohol free is disclosed in JP-A-1-196044. (The term "JP-A" as used herein signifies an "unexamined published Japanese patent application".)
However, when overall rapid processing is achieved by simply shortening the development process in this way, there is no inhibition of an increase in staining when this technique is used alone. There are also considerable practical problems with staining of the white base material. It has been concluded that this staining arises because of the increased residual amount of excess colored material (dyes etc.) in the photographic material which result from shortening the development processing time and because of inadequate washing-out of these residual materials due to the shortened processing time following development. Such staining is especially pronounced in the case of processes of the type where the replenishment rates are low.
Techniques for preventing the occurrence of staining in which the processing liquids in the water washing and/or stabilization processes are subjected to a reverse osmosis treatment are known, and such techniques have been disclosed, for example, in JP-A-60-241053 and JP-A-62-254151. The unwanted components (especially fixer and bleach-fixer components) in the water washing water and/or stabilizer are removed by subjecting the processing liquids to reverse osmosis and it is thought that this reduces the adverse effects of these components on the photographic material.
However, with processing in which the water washing time is shortened, and especially in the case of overall ultra-rapid processing from color development through to drying, as described above, it is still not possible to obtain satisfactory photographic characteristics by just using a reverse osmosis treatment technique. Thus, the problem of base staining has not been satisfactorily overcome.